NYT 3:40
LAT 3:17
CS untimed
Tausig untimed
Tyler Hinman and Jeremy Horwitz's New York Times crossword
Here's how I envision this puzzle's development:
Tyler: "Let's make a themeless together."
Jeremy: "No, I want to do a themed puzzle. Something with trivia."
Great cacophony ensues as the chocolate hits the peanut butter, cruciverbally speaking.
Tyler: "Hey, you got a theme in my themeless!"
Jeremy: "What are you talking about? You got your themeless all over my themed puzzle!"
Light bulbs appear over both men's heads.
Together: "Omigod! We made a 70-word themeless puzzle packed with juicy fill and managed to fit three theme entries into it."
I know today's constructors are on the same pub trivia team, so I wonder if A SEED for this puzzle came about from a trivia quiz or if they hit on the trivia trio themselves. It's light as themes go—just 31 squares. But it's thematically solid, bringing together three directors of movies with one-letter titles:
• 17A. ["Z" director, 1969] is known as COSTA-GAVRAS.
• 32A. ["M" director, 1931] is FRITZ LANG.
• 51A. ["W" director, 2008] is OLIVER STONE.
I greatly enjoyed solving this puzzle, though usually I would grumble about a 70-worder that's clued easy enough to hit a Wednesday/Thursday level of difficulty. But I kept getting surprised by answers that were cool, and that was fun.
On the down side, the three UPs distracted me because (a) I hesitated to enter the second and third ones and (b) one of them felt iffy. That one is 8D: [Encircle with a belt] for GIRD UP. I see it in the dictionary entry for gird in the example "gird (up) one's loins," but I don't think that sort of "girding up" involves a belt. If you're belting your loins, I don't wanna hear about it. I wanted UPSIZE to be RESIZE (42D: [Enlarge]) because of 8D, and then UP TO PAR (35D: [Adequate for the job]) showed up and made me wish the other UPs had left this one alone.
Favorite clues and answers:
• 6A. [Symbol in a Riemann sum] is SIGMA. All I know is that SIGMA is used in math for sums of some sort. The clue looked a lot scarier than it turned out to be.
• 16A. MOO [___ juice (milk)]!
• 20A. Scrabbly KLEENEX, a [Kimberly-Clark brand]. KOTEX was too short. (HUGGIES and PULL-UPS would fit, though.)
• 26A. Slangy WHUP means to [Tan] someone's hide, figuratively.
• 31A. "WANT TO?" means ["Are you game?"].
• 34A. Scrabbly JUAREZ is an [El Paso neighbor]. (Hi, Monica!)
• 41A. [Cause of an awakening] sounds metaphysical, but it's the APNEA that might disrupt your sleep.
• 44A. STAR MAPS are [Some Beverly Hills tourist purchases]. There was a recent NYT story about a teenager who's gone into business selling Hamptons star maps.
• 50A. Didn't see this clue while solving: [Google had one in 2004: Abbr.] clues IPO. Tyler, your employer really doesn't need the extra publicity.
• 1D. I hope someone somewhere complains that clueing LUCKIER as [More Irish?] is derogatory to the Irish. And then I hope they're mocked.
• 3D. What is it about the word NOSEGAY that I find so charming? It's a small bouquet or [Posy].
• Anyone think that 6D and 7D would be my entrée into the grid? STAX and rap impresario IRV Gotti, you don't scare me.
• 10D. Oddest clue in the puzzle: [Hearers of Jonah's prophecy] are ASSYRIANS. This may be Biblical, but ASSYRIANS is not short enough to find its way into the puzzle often so it's not Biblical crosswordese.
• 13D. I read a little IONESCO in college—["Le Rhinoceros" playwright Eugene]. I read it in an English translation.
• 18D, 24D. More Scrabbleocity: GEE WHIZ and QUIZNO'S.
• 30D. CREAM SODA is an [A&W beverage] and my favorite Dum-Dum flavor.
• 36D. I like the pairing of [Cousins] and ANALOGS. As in "this is analogous to that/these things are cousins."
• 38D. A WASHOUT is a [Complete failure].
I hereby give my blessing to the cruciverbal union of these two constructors. Jeremy and Tyler, do you have more joint productions in the pipeline?
Updated Thursday morning:
Gail Grabowski's CrosSynergy/Washington Post puzzle, "Case Study"—Janie's review
We know this theme very well: the last word of the theme fill is one that combines with a word in the title. Today that word is "case." The good news is that the theme fill is fresh and the re-configured phrases are pretty lively, too. Today's offerings are:
• 17A. [Wimbledon feature] GRASS COURT → court case.
• 11D. [Delete, for one] COMPUTER KEY → key case.
• 25D. [Healthy all-occasion gift] FRUIT BASKET → basket case (someone who's mentally not-so-healthy. This pair is my fave).
• 63A. [It's said there's no cure for it] COMMON COLD → cold case (followed closely by this pair).
And there's some lively cluing and fill throughout that give this puzzle its [Pizazz] ELAN. I'm fond of the SW corner—the children's corner?—with "BE NICE" ["Don't fight, please"] right next to "ARE NOT!" [Childish denial]. Other exclamations are ["]MAMMA [mia!"] and "TADA!" [Cry of accomplishment]; and one that summons up a variation of "the actor's nightmare": "I'M ON!" for ["That's my cue!"].
Then there's:
• [Smart set] for MENSA;
• [It can cover a lot] for TAR (anyone else start with SOD—and thinking of that "lot" as something more exclusively along the lines of ONE ACRE [4,840 square yards]?);
• [Lasting impression] for SCAR;
• [Pay what's due] for PONY UP (love this expression, even with its apparently unknown etymology);
• [Sketcher's eraser] for ART GUM (because when was the last time I owned one or even thought about art gum?!);
• and in the "good, clean fun" department, [Washer batch] LOAD and COIN-OP [Like some laudromats].
Jack McInturff's Los Angeles Times crossword
Jack McInturff mentioned me in his Crossword Corner interview today:"Orange" the puzzle commentator, once said of a puzzle I did "The fill seems old school." It's probably because I'm 79 years old and that's what I remember. It did give me a wake-up call, however, and I'm trying to be more current.
See? That's why crossword bloggers write about crosswords: We want crosswords to be as good and as entertaining as possible, so it's gratifying when we see evidence that a puzzle-maker or editor uses our critiques in a constructive manner to give solvers a better experience.
Today's L.A. Times theme involves phrases that end with sort of synonymous words, JERK, GOOSE, YO-YO, and DOPE. A thesaurus tells me JERK is a synonym for "fool," but I don't use it that way. I guess some people say "I felt like a complete jerk" to mean "doofus" rather than "heel," though. The theme:
• 20A. CLEAN AND JERK is a [Weightlifting event].
• 30A. The CANADA GOOSE (not "Canadian goose") is a [Golf course pest]. Last spring, I saw a goose perched atop a three-story building. Is that not bizarre? The very same week, my mother saw a rooftop goose for the first time in her life. Heads up, people: The geese have plans. Watch your back.
• 39A. A [Spinning toy manipulated with sticks] is a CHINESE YO-YO.
• 49A. The STRAIGHT DOPE is [Honest info]. You know Cecil Adams' "Straight Dope" column in alt-weekly papers? A couple times I have seen a lexicographer citing Cecil's answers. I think that means his research standards are considered good.
The #1 clue people will be Googling today is 32D: [British actor Robert, the original Colonel Pickering in "My Fair Lady"]. Robert COOTE? That doesn't ring a bell for me.
#2 is 5D: [Original primer used to paint the Golden Gate Bridge], or RED LEAD. No idea what RED LEAD is. Dictionary tells me it's a red form of lead oxide used in paint.
Favorite clues:
• The twin old Ford clues. [Early Ford success] is the MODEL A, while EDSEL was an [Ill-fated Ford].
• [Actors, often] are EMOTERS. Note that the clue does not say "overactors."
• [Some heroes] are called HOAGIES. Yes, I was thinking heroically rather than sandwichly.
• [Very big wind], 4 letters. The obvious choice is between GUST and GALE...but it's a TUBA. That's what my nephew plays. My sister has to listen to three horn players practicing at home, and no, she hasn't developed a case of hysterical deafness. (Speaking of HYSTERIA, that's a [Common crowd reaction in monster films].)
Ben Tausig's Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword, "A Few Words With You"
The puzzle's title should be interpreted as "A Few Words with 'U' Added to The End": [Yogi's house?] might be HINDU QUARTERS. [Cuddly pasta sauce freebie?] is RAGU DOLL. [Ambrosia and nectar selections?] are a MENU OF GOD. "SHAMU, WOW!" is a [Literal cry at Sea World?]. That one's my favorite because it builds on the silly infomercial product name, ShamWow, which in turn plays on chamois. And the last one is FONDU MEMORIES, or ["The melted cheddar...the kitschy pots...ah, youth"?]. Hooray for cheddar! I don't do Swiss.
Given how few English words there are that end with a U, and how few of those would lend themselves to this theme (familiar word/phrase begins with U-less part of -U word), I'm impressed with this theme. The answers had some decent "aha" action. Now, the fill includes BADU, SABU, TUTU, and APU. A.P.-meets-APU has some potential. King Tut doesn't really have familiar phrases that begin with "Tut," though.
Top answers in the fill: KOJAK meets JETSKIS; WASILLA's near another W*S*L word, WEASELS; CECILIA is opposite OPHELIA. I like BAGATELLE, but feel it would best be clued as [A mere ___]. Top three clues:
• KEN is clued as [Sugar's Daddy ___ (controversial new Mattel product)]. Have you seen this guy doll? Sugar is a teeny dog, and KEN is her "daddy." He's dressed ridiculously and his name evokes the non-Mattel term "Sugar Daddy."
• THA is clued as an [Article in Source magazine?]. Not a magazine article, a definite article.
• IRAQ is an [Emancipated Middle Eastern country with no more problems]. Honest!
November 18, 2009
Thursday, 11/19/09
February 19, 2009
Friday, 2/20
WSJ 6:45
LAT 6:20
NYT 6:17
Sun 6:00
CHE 5:20
BEQ 5:02
(post updated at 5:22 p.m. Friday)
My Friday-morning blogging time will be cut short by a date with a Tribune photographer. Features writer Patrick Reardon interviewed me Thursday for an article to run sometime next week—he had an odd assortment of questions about crosswords, not the standard sorts of questions I've been asked before. Here's hoping that he can extract some semi-coherent quotes from my ramblings. The Vegas bookmakers are now taking bets on whether the headline or first paragraph will include the clichéd "What's a seven-letter word for..." bit.
Paula Gamache's New York Times crossword is classic Gamache: a bunch of 10- and 11-letter answers stacked together, smooth fill featuring plenty of interesting words and phrases, and a Saturday-puzzle vibe. Ahhh. Who doesn't love a Gamache?Here's the stuff that delighted me:
Now, it's not all fun and games. This puzzle also has a bunch of gnarly answers whose clues don't make things easy:
Jeremy Horwitz constructed Oscar Week's final Sun crossword, "Oscar-Winning Roles." The theme is a tough one: the names of the fictional Oscar winners who have populated various movies. I've only seen one of the four movies in question, so I was working the hell out of the crossings here. The Bodyguard's fictional Oscar winner was named RACHEL / MARRON. Is that Whitney Houston's character? The internet says yes. I had no clue. I mean, there was a long clue for it, but it meant nothing to me because I never saw the movie. TUGG SPEEDMAN is from Tropic Thunder. Is that Robert Downey Jr.'s character? No, it's Ben Stiller. True story from commenter "chefwen" over at the Rex Parker blog the other day: Her dog ran away and the family that picked him up was Ben Stiller's. Her dog spent a night in the bed belonging to Stiller and spouse Christine Taylor. VICKI LESTER was a character in A Star Is Born, the new stage name of Judy Garland's character Esther Blodgett; never saw the movie, but Wikipedia filled me in. I liked In & Out but couldn't remember the name of Matt Dillon's actor-character without a bunch of crossings; it's CAMERON DRAKE.
My favorite clues and answers:
Janet Bender's Wall Street Journal crossword is yet another in the series of WSJ puzzles that are a good bit easier than a typical Sunday NYT. The "C Plus" theme is better than average (har!), with a C getting added to various phrases to give them new meanings. My favorite theme answers are the ones that took the C at the beginning of the first word. Does that mean those entries were more successful than the ones with a C added to a subsequent word, or just that those are the ones that grabbed me? Here they are:
In the non-theme fill, we get a couple two-part names that seldom show up in the grid in their entirety: Actress TYNE DALY is a [Winner of six Emmys and a Tony], and the ENOLA GAY was a [Famous B-29]. Or maybe that should be [Infamous B-29]. There's a shiny new clue for ERIC: [Attorney General Holder]. I like that he's stirring things up already, and not because there's a topless statue in the building. We can only hope that he, too, will eventually write and perform songs.
Samuel Donaldson's Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle, "Seeing Stars," has a theme that is of little help when solving. Four of the longest answers contain CONSTELLATIONS in their midst. The [Psychological term for a stepmother's sexual attraction to her stepson] is the PHAEDRA COMPLEX, with Draco hiding inside it. The professional's HOURLY RATE splits Lyra between its two words. Leo is prowling inside LITTLE ONE, or [Toddler]. And there's some constellation within NATIVE LAND. I started Googling my way to the stars—Tivel constellation, no. Tivela constellation, no, but Google asks if I meant Vela, so that's it. Physics and astronomy fans, this puzzle's for you. Law-school grads, this clue's for you: [Order of the ___ (honor society for law-school grads)] is COIF. People who've taken a stats class, this one's for you: [Way to determine if a sample is indicative of the norm] is the T TEST. College admissions staff, this one's for you: [___ code (identifier on a SAT score report)] is CEEB.
Updated:
The theme in Robert Doll's LA Times puzzle confused me for the longest time. The theme answers all run in the Down direction, and their clues all include the word "literally." Eventually I saw that the answers were fractured and sometimes reordered phrases with missing prepositions—those prepositions have been replaced by moving words around. We had a similar theme in a Merl Reagle Sunday puzzle last year, and I can't help thinking that a title for the puzzle might help reveal the theme. Without further ado, here's how Doll's theme works:
Plenty of tough clues make it that much harder to piece together the theme entries if you haven't figured out how they work. Among the tougher ones are these:
Today's Brendan Emmett Quigley crossword is a pun puzzle called "Heathens." The theme entries are SQUARE PAGAN, / A ROUND HOLE (punning on "square peg in a round hole"), NO REST FOR / THE WICCAN ("no rest for the wicked"), and WITCH WAY IS UP ("Which way is up?"). I give this theme a solid "meh" today because I've been a garden-variety heathen my whole life, with no affinity for the pagan/wicca/druid bent. I know the dictionary definition for "heathen" includes polytheistic pagans as well as folks who belong to no religion, but still. Favorite answers: ONSTAR, the [Safety device for GM vehicles]; THE WIRE, that [TV series whose theme was "Way Down in the Hole"], a show that everyone still raves about but that I've never seen; REYNARD the [Fox of fables], because Reynard is so close to Reynaldo; and a TOWNIE who is a [Nonuniversity type]. Tougher nails: QIN is the [Dynasty during which much of the Great Wall of China was built]; [Actress Tilly of "The Good Earth"] clues LOSCH; COZ is a [Family relation, for short], meaning "cousin"; and beneath COZ is KAZ, or [Middle fielder Matsui], a name I know only from a Byron Walden crossword (in which KAZMATSUI was stacked on or under its near twin, HAZMATSUIT).
February 16, 2009
Tuesday, 2/17
Jonesin' 4:55
Sun 3:12
LAT 3:03
NYT 2:51
The theme in newcomer Kristian House's New York Times crossword is BROKEN-HEARTED, and the word HEART is broken between two words in various phrases:
Before I even made it to that first theme entry, I got disgruntled in 1-Across. [God, with "one's"] clues MAKER, which put me in a "please don't marginalize nonbelievers" mood. A fill-in-the-blank [Meet one's ___] would have seemed more about language and less about making a statement. But maybe that's just me. Aside from that, most of the puzzle practically filled itself in, with the exception of the long Down answers that made me ponder a bit: [Managing perfectly] clues IN TOP FORM and [Drier's need] is a DISH TOWEL but I had laundry machines on the mind. [Cylindrical sandwiches] also gave me pause, as I picture WRAPS with beveled ends, but a Google image search shows me plenty of perpendicularly cut wrap sandwiches. I never order wraps, so...
A couple answers might be less familiar to some of our newer solvers. [To the left, at sea] is APORT. DARN (["Rats!"]), I neglected to use my crosswordese nautical words during my cruise in December. NAN used to get clued more often as a Bobbsey Twin, but now we see it as [Tandoor-baked bread]. If you're an Indian-food neophyte, you can eat nan (sometimes spelled NAAN) without trepidation. The clue [W.W. II-era G.I., e.g.] just might break the record for punctuation—six periods, a hyphen, and a comma? Yowsa. The answer, AMVET, isn't one that we're likely to run into more than once a decade in the crossword. All I know about this word is that back in the day, my mom'd call AMVETS to pick up clothing discards to sell in their thrift stores.
Well, "Jerzy Whitmore" looked like an improbably Polish-meets-WASP name up there in the Sun crossword byline, and it just so happens that Jeremy Horwitz, who has previously made Oscar-week Sun crosswords, anagrams to Jerzy Whitmore. The "International Film Festival" screens three Best Picture winners whose titles start with nationalities, and the films play out on a tall vertical Imax screen (which is to say the grid is 16 squares tall). The ENGLISH PATIENT, The FRENCH CONNECTION, and AMERICAN BEAUTY are the three films in question. Favorite clues: [Poles on the equator, maybe?] are EXPATS; the [Hollywood agent Emanuel whose brother Rahm is the White House chief of staff] is ARI (and the Entourage character Ari is based on him); [Word with snow or bank] is JOB; and [Contemporary of Moses] Malone is KAREEM Abdul-Jabbar. The smooth fill includes LAKE PLACID, Your EXCELLENCY (and yes, I do answer to that), BO DEREK, and PALE ALE.
Updated:
Peter Wentz's LA Times crossword has a subtle underwear theme, which is hard to pull off. Or maybe it's pretty obvious, but the showy non-thematic crossword fill distracted me. The four theme entries end with men's undies:
These four answers would all look better in the singular, but they're only underwear in the plural. The theme entries contain plenty of uncommon letters—four K's, two J's, and an X. Some of the fill in this grid is just terrific: BAD SANTA is a [2003 Billy Bob Thornton holiday film]. JOE SCHMO is just some [Random guy]. ["Attention, ___ shoppers..."] is missing its KMART. TSK, TSK is more commonly seen in crosswords as the half TSK; it means ["For shame"]. [Soften at the factory, as jeans] clues PREWASH.
Updated Tuesday evening:
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword for this week, "Double Dip," doubles one letter in each of three ice cream flavors, thereby changing the number of words in each flavor name:
This puzzle has seven zones in the grid, each with a trio of longish (6 to 8 letters) answers. My favorite answers: BENELUX is an [Org. of three European countries]; Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg have an economic union, apparently. An ALTAR BOY is an [Assistant in the Roman Catholic church]. [Take the bait?] is the double-edged clue for SWALLOW. ["Penny Arcade," for instance] is a WEBCOMIC. (Hmm, maybe it helps to follow along because the Penny Arcade strip that's up now makes no sense to me. ESSAY is clued as a [Blog entry, sometimes]; yes, indeed. To [Get ready for a space flight, perhaps] is to SUIT UP.
November 09, 2008
Monday, 11/10
Jonesin' 4:35
CS 3:56
Sun 3:13
LAT 2:40
NYT 2:30
(updated at 9:45 Monday morning)
Gail Grabowski constructs quite a few themed crosswords for Newsday, so she's got a knack for making easy crosswords. (This is, the experts say, difficult to pull off.) Her New York Times puzzle presents a TACO TOPPING bar, with CHEESECLOTH ([Open-textured cotton fabric]), ONION DOME (a [Russian church feature]), and SALSA CLUB ([Jazzy Latin dance site]) available. Highlights in this puzzle: SWING SET is a [Backyard apparatus for kids]. YES, SIR is a [Polite affirmation]. This positive puzzle also has SI, SI, or [Senor's "Positively!"]. The verb WOLFS is clued [Scarfs (down)]. And a SNEEZE is an [Allergic reaction].
Sometimes on a Monday, I like to point out all the answers in the fill that beginning solvers need to pay heed to, the sorts of words that appear far more often in crosswords than in life. Guess what? There's very little of that in this puzzle, and that's an impressive feat. We have NIA, which is clued as [Actress Peeples] but can also be actress Long or Vardalos, too. There's an ANODE, or [Battery terminal]. [Completely, after "from"] is the three-word A TO Z, which my cousin complained about the other day—she'd like those multi-word answers to be signaled in the clue. An [F.B.I. agent] is a G-MAN, or government man. And that's pretty much it for anything that can be considered "crosswordese" at all.
Jeremy Horwitz's Sun crossword, "Season Tickets," buys movie tickets to four "season" movies:
This time around, SNEEZE is clued as ["Gesundheit" elicitor]. [Basic ingredient?] refers to the cigarette brand Basic, so the answer is TOBACCO. The excellent entry HARD-NOSED is clued [Stubborn]. I forgot what the [TV network formerly known as Pax] is called now—it's ION.
Updated:
Pancho Harrison's LA Times crossword contains five Across theme entries that make the cut:
One of the 10-letter Down answers sort of looked like a theme entry—GRINDSTONE, or [Sharpening wheel]—but it's paired with the obviously non-thematic EASY STREET, and grinding is a different action than the more abrupt verbs featured in the theme answers.
There are a couple answers that seem to be used more in crosswords than in conversation. AGUE, a [Flulike symptom], means fever and shivering, and it's a word I learned from crosswords. [Former fast jet, for short] clues SST, or supersonic transport. When the Concordes stopped their transatlantic flights, all the SST clues had to move into the past tense. Didn't we mostly refer to the plane as the Concorde rather than as an SST?
In Bruce Venzke and Stella Daily's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Extra Measures," the theme is a [Quip about entitled people]. I like that the clue sets up a little context for the quip rather than just being a blank [Start of quip] non-hint. The theme entries spell out GIVE 'EM AN INCH / AND ALL OF A / SUDDEN / THEY THINK / THEY'RE RULERS. That 6-letter answer in the middle is made possible by the grid being widened to 15x16—with an odd number of letters across, a centered answer would have to contain an odd number of letters. I giggled to see STELLA clued as [Stanley Kowalski's cry], because I know Ms. Daily is no fan of hearing that famed cry directed at her. There are 14 fill answers that are 7 to 9 letters long; I like the LITIGANT/ATTORNEY crossing, a SWAN DIVE ([Elegant way to enter a pool]), DR. SEUSS, COUGH DROP, and EGG ROLL.
Matt Jones's Jonesin' crossword, "My Heart Belongs to You," has five heart-related theme entries, six 8-letter answers in the fill, and two corners with wide-open white space. The theme entries place their cardiac words in various places, and they're all about music:
Assorted clues and answers: [Capital city near the Pacific] is LIMA, PERU. [Groups with fringe benefits?] are CULTS. [Meat cooked in its own fat, to a chef] is CONFIT; I didn't know that's what the word meant. I never heard of ULTIMA [___ Online (long-running MMORPG)] since I'm not a gamer. [Oscar the Grouch's original color] was ORANGE? I did not know that. [Reznor and Lott, for two] clues TRENTS; I like the dissonance between the two. [Hip name for baby boys] is KADEN; wow, with that sort of clue, the universe of "acceptable crossword answers" expands vastly. I'd complain, but I like Matt's ambitious corners of white space. [Some VCR models] clues SANYOS; I just read that Panasonic and Sanyo are merging, and I really hope they create a portmanteau name like Panasanyo, Sanyosonic, or Panyo.
September 16, 2008
Wednesday, 9/17
Onion 6:38
Tausig 6:10
LAT 3:56
NYS 3:55
NYT 3:44
CS 3:31
(updated at 9:45 a.m. Wednesday)
Man, oh, man. I am beat. There's nothing like having your car towed after remedying the reason you got a parking ticket. Should they have towed it? Certainly not. Does the city need the revenue? Apparently. It's the least I can do to help out. But your kid's bedtime is hardly the optimal time to load up the family in a borrowed car to visit the auto pound.
Yeah, so I didn't enjoy Edward Safran's New York Times crossword one bit, but I believe it's my overwrought state of mind and not the puzzle that's at fault. Is this Mr. Safran's constructing debut? I do not recognize the name. The theme is cinematic men who ___, clued by actor and year:
Answers that didn't come so quickly to mind:
In the New York Sun, Jeremy Horwitz provides a trivia theme in his crossword, "Reading for a Bit Part"—there are three semi-recent movie adaptations of novels in which the novel's author had a bit part. The [1989 film in which author Stephen King plays a minister] is PET SEMATARY. I never read the book or saw the movie, so I don't know why it's Sematary and not Cemetery—but how fun to have a crazy misspelling featured in a crossword. The [1999 film in which John Irving plays a stationmaster, with "The"] is CIDER HOUSE RULES. I read that, and found off-putting the fact that a character's name was spelled "Melony." The [1996 film in which author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. plays a sad man on the street] is MOTHER NIGHT. I probably read this in high school, and I have no spelling-related comments on it. The corners of Jeremy's puzzle contain triple-stacks of 8-letter answers and quadruple-stacked 6's. Included in those bricks of white space are many lively entries, such as a LAVA LAMP, CALAMARI, TRINIDAD, and ZEALOT.
Updated:
I had no idea what Robert Doll's LA Times crossword theme was when I had GARLIC PRESS ([Implement used on cloves]) and SETTING SUN ([Much-photographed phenomenon]) in the grid. I may have also had EARLY TIMES, [Maker of the Official Mint Julep of the Kentucky Derby], without noticing it was also a theme entry. Then I reached 63-Down, [What you might get from the ends of this puzzle's six longest answers], with N*** in place. The Sun! A beloved source of a crossword puzzle! Newspapers! Aha! The other three phrases hiding newspaper names are the [Marlene Dietrich trademark], a HUSKY VOICE; [Oscar's cousin], the GOLDEN GLOBE award; and the [Fort Knox entrance, for one], a SENTRY POST. Not only are there six theme entries here, but some of them manage to intersect. Hey, a question for you constructor types: Do the four squares that form ell shapes (after 1-Across, above 38-Down, and those squares' opposites) all count as "cheater squares"? And why exactly are cheater squares frowned upon?
Patrick Jordan's CrosSynergy puzzle, "Yo-Ho-Ho!", serves up four kinds of [Mixed drink with rum], the old-time sailor or pirate's liquor of choice (hence the crossword's title). The drinks are the PINA COLADA, BEACHCOMBER, BAHAMA MAMA, and TOM AND JERRY. I've never had any of them, but daiquiri is too short to fit into this theme. Favorite clues: [Pained expression?] for OUCH and [Fault line?] for OOPS. There's some Scrabbly fill, such as QUENCHED and ZONKS. My favorite fill's not the Scrabbly stuff, though. DUST-UPS are [Quarrels], and a delicious CANDY BAR is a [Vending machine buy, perhaps]. I did take a wrong turn with that last one—I followed the CAN part with OF POP, which I also would have liked to see in the grid.
Ben Tausig was on the schedule for this week's Onion A.V. Club crossword, which took me quite a bit longer than the day's other puzzles. Is it really that hard, or did I fall off Ben's wavelength this morning? Each of the five theme entries has a short word in which the first two letters have been transposed, altering a phrase's meaning:
Favorite fill: UPCHUCK, or [Hurl]; YES'M; CROSS-DRESS, or [Reverse one's gear?]; and ANARCHY, or [Political state whose symbol often appears in Wite-Out]. Favorite clues: [Private addressee] is your DIARY, and not someone in the military addressed by a private. [Note below an F?] looks like a music class, but it's the teacher's notation, "SEE ME." There were plenty of clues that forced me to use the crossings because I had no idea what they were. [Bret and Jemaine of "Flight of the Conchords," e.g.] are a DUO. [___ de Beber (Antonio Carlos Jobim classic)] is AGUA. (Does that mean "water to drink"?) ELO is a [Chess rating system named for its creator]? I haven't heard of it, but the Electric Light Orchestra? Oh, yes. [Bassist Palladino] is named PINO.
Ben Tausig's other puzzle, the Ink Well/Chicago Reader crossword called "Number Two," posits some punny tag lines that could've been used in commercials about vice presidential candidates in 2004 and 2008. Four years ago, it was Bush/Cheney vs. Kerry/Edwards, so ["Dick Doesn't Just Lobby for the Tobacco Companies--He's a Client" (rejected campaign ad, 2004)] is CHENEY: SMOKER (playing on "chain smoker"), and ["John: Model Citizen" (rejected campaign ad, 2004)] EDWARDS TO LIVE BY (words to live by). The current campaign pits Obama/Biden against McCain/Palin, so ["Now More Than Ever: Joe" (rejected campaign ad, 2008)] is BIDEN: HIS TIME (biding his time), and ["How Does Sarah Stack Up?" (rejected campaign ad, 2008)] is PALIN COMPARISON (pale in comparison). Say what you will about the ugliness of modern American electoral politics—at least they spare us terrible puns. Surrounding the theme entries are a bunch of lively answers with fun clues. There's PIPE DOWN, the N.Y. JETS, WASABI, and KNOWNS (I had GIVENS). DIEBOLD fills in the blank in ["___ Accidentally Leaks Results of 2008 Election Early" (Onion headline)]. BRYANT gets away from college football, with [Plus-size retailer Lane ___]. I am confused about one thing, though—why is AGA clued [Indian tourist destination]? That clue seems better suited to AGRA than AGA.
November 04, 2007
Monday, 11/5
CS 3:55
NYS 3:11
LAT 2:54
NYT 2:44
I really like the New York Times crossword by Jeremy Horwitz. The theme's straightforward (three names, real or fictional, that begin with the same initial followed by middle name/last name) and fairly Scrabbly (five Js, a Q, and a K). The T.S. Eliot poetic protagonist, J. ALFRED PRUFROCK, the newspaper editor played by J.K. Simmons in the recent batch of Spider-Man movies, J. JONAH JAMESON, and the potatoe-spelling ex-V.P., J. DANFORTH QUAYLE, occupy the 15/13/15 theme. Crossing the center square is SAN JOSE, the [California city in a 1968 Dionne Warwick hit]—and San Jose is just a few miles from where Jeremy teaches math with Byron Walden. Other cool fill: JET PLANE, SAO PAULO in its entirety (rather than [___ Paulo]), PILSNER, ZIPPO ([A goose egg]), JIMI Hendrix, the [Lively '60s dance] called the FRUG. Tons of names in this puzzle (from just the top six rows, PATTI LaBelle, OMAR Khayyam, J. ALFRED PRUFROCK, MOE Szyslak, Frankie AVALON, Pres. TAFT, ANDIE McDowell, and URI Geller), which means I enjoyed it thoroughly; your mileage may vary if you don't tend to know all those names. Favorite non-theme clue: [Like the Marquis de Sade or the Duke of Earl] for TITLED.
Jonathan Gersch's New York Sun crossword is called "How Precious!" because it's packed with precious stones—the BIRTHSTONES for April through July, in order. April's DIAMONDBACK, May's EMERALD CITY, June's PEARL ONIONS, and July's RUBY TUESDAY Why doesn't it continue with August? Because August's birthstone is the chartreuse-colored peridot, and there aren't any well-known phrases that start with that word. Plus, I'm not crazy about the stone. Should've been born in a different month!
Updated:
It's Bob Klahn for a second day in a row—this time with an uplifting CrosSynergy puzzle. The theme entries in "Show of Support" all wear a BRA. Panicking gets lifted and separated into PANIC BRAKING ([Frantically putting one's foot down?]. Cardinal sins don a bra for [Vatican College smarts?], or CARDINALS' BRAINS. And discovery boogies into DISCO BRAVERY, [Daring to step onto the dance floor?]. The rest of the clues follow the Klahn pattern—a smattering of successive clues that use the same word (e.g., [Dim bulb] for ASS followed by [Drink with dim sum] for TEA) provide reminders of the insanity of the English language, wherein so many words have multiple unrelated meanings. Klahn also toys with our expectations of which meaning is in play (e.g., [Game show pilots, briefly] are MCS, or emcees—having nought to do with TV show pilot episodes but rather, the people who pilot the show). And then there's plenty of alliteration, but not with the effect of super-easy clues. I think [Vino venue] (4) and [Welsh woofer] (5) would both be a little easier with a non-alliterative second word. Whereas from today's Newsday puzzle, clues like [Highway haulers] (5) and [Snakelike swimmer] (3) are Monday-easy, very little parsing required. Does that make sense? That somehow Klahn uses alliteration to confuse rather than to pep up a straightforward factual clue?
Gail Grabowski's LA Times puzzle gathers three ENGLISH AUTHORs at the ends of a LITTLE DICKENS, RACK OF LAMB, and "LESS IS MORE." A quartet of 9-letter entries enhance the fill (SAUSALITO, CHEESE LOG). The answer to ["You ___ listening to me"] is ARENT—and this reminds me of one of last night's Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" segments. Marge and Homer were "Mr. and Mrs. Simpson," spoofing Brangelina in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. "Why didn't you tell me you were a paid assassin?" Marge asks Homer. "Why didn't you tell me you were an assassin?" is Homer's rejoinder. "I did! Twenty times!" she replies. (This is all paraphrased from memory.) Homer is an infamously poor listener.
August 12, 2007
Monday, 8/13
CS 4:12
NYS 4:08
NYT 2:48
LAT 2:46
(updated at 10:55 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday)
If you're like me and you wish every book had not only a table of contents but also a finely crafted index, and you have a copy of How to Conquer the New York Times Crossword Puzzle, then feel free to click on this picture to enlarge it, print it out (it should print out in the right size even though it's huge on the screen, but not crystal-clear), and tuck it in the front of your book. (Thanks to Harris for the technical assistance. Unless it doesn't work, of course.)
I may be taking a short vacation and skipping blogging Monday and Tuesday nights, with Al Sanders and John Farmer filling in for me. However, my son's come down with an ill-timed fever, so we may not be going anywhere tomorrow after all. We'll have to reassess his status Monday morning.
The Monday New York Times puzzle is by Andrew Ries. His name is familiar to me—if this is the same Andrew Ries whose name I've seen during my years of editing pulmonary medicine papers and a crossword constructing debut, then congratulations to Dr. Ries. If it's a different guy but still a debut, then congratulations to Mr. Ries. If it's not a debut, then hey, I liked your puzzle, sir. The theme is fairly beefy for a Monday, with four long answers ending with SUN, STAR, POST, and TIMES, all of which can be a DAILY (5-Across) PAPER (72-Across).The fill contains a couple Xs and a Q for extra SPICE. However, what on earth is SEXY doing clued as [Like a Playmate of the Month]? Not everyone finds PhotoShopping and silicone to be sexy. How about a little equal access, e.g., [Like Brangelina]? If you don't like Brad, you might like Angelina. Today's old-school crossword fill: EWER, EDA LeShan, IVOR Novello, AGATE clued as a [Playing marble] (Does anyone still play marbles? Is anyone unfamiliar with the quartz variety called agate?), and the crossword direction ESE (not to be confused with the slang esé).
Updated:
The kid tossed and turned feverishly for hours—in Mom and Dad's bed. Ben awoke refreshed, but his folks are feeling plumb tuckered out. Sure, it's nothing compared with the sleep deprivation attendant on caring for a newborn, but we've grown soft since Ben's baby days and need our sleep.
Hooray! Another CrosSynergy crossword from Bob Klahn. In "Heart Association," the theme entries start with kinds of hearts: ARTIFICIAL, HEAVY, PURPLE, and BROKEN. As I'd expect from Klahn, many terrific clues: [They may get hot under the collar] for NAPES and [It holds its head up] for NECK; [What the Saints come marching in on?] for ARTIFICIAL TURF; [They're barely brown] for ECRUS (a good clue can redeem a lame word); [Result of many a union grievance?] for BROKEN MARRIAGE; [River whose name is Celtic for "river"] for AVON (did you know that? I didn't); [Prepare a dotted line, perhaps] for PERFORATE; and [Joint chief?] for WARDEN. Usually a theme like this would include straightforward clues for the theme entries, but here, two are tricky question-marked clues. EFILE (used here) and e-mail may be the only e- terms I hear people use. Other crosswords recently have given us the EDATE, EZINE, EMAG, ETAIL, and ENOTE, which I don't use (nor do I e-use them). What e-words do you use?
The theme in Fred Jackson III's LA Times puzzle is hard to label. Three-word phrases in which words 1 and 3 start with D and word 2 is short? He includes DULL AS DISHWATER, DEAR OLD DAD, DIME A DOZEN, and DOLLARS TO DONUTS. Dollars to donuts, I'll bet most dads wouldn't like to be tagged as dull or a dime a dozen—not that the crossword is thus slandering them or anything. AFROS is clued as [Big hairdos]; lately, I've been noticing more AFRO clues that reference the hairstyle itself rather than its purported outdatedness. Fros may have vanished in the '90s, but they're back now to a degree.
Update #2:
Jeremy Horwitz's New York Sun puzzle, "Mercury Records," features three songs I've never heard of ("COLD TURKEY," "COOL JERK," and "WARM IT UP") and one for which I have hardcore junior-high nostalgia. Foreigner's "HOT BLOODED" has dreadful lyrics, but hey, it fits the temperature/song continuum. (And no, Ben's fever did not evoke those lyrics because his fever maxed out at 102.9°.) Several standout clues: I like [Post-alpha bits?] for BETAS because it's clever and because I loved-loved-loved Alpha-Bits oaty orthographical breakfast cereal goodness when I was a kid. [It might be filled with pot smoke] is a fun mislead for KILN. The COFFEE BEAN is [Part of the morning grind?]. The Biblical-sounding ["Exodus" scribe] clues novelist Leon URIS. [Nickel and dime] means the COINS and not the adjective or verb. TALL can be defined as [Like Magic?] Johnson. Favorite fill: PB AND J, PAY PHONE, and the words containing those 10 instances of X, Z, J, or K.
